War for territory is one of the oldest tropes of the space genre. But getting things through space is a challenge, particularly people; people need not only tonnage and space, but life support. How do you conveniently get a whole army, which needs a lot of mass for equipment and the troops to use it themselves.
Hang on, isn't spacewar supposed to be so advanced, that troops are no longer required? Deathrays from space make invasion unnecessary, point defenses make it impossible, and nobody will even bother with anything but spaceships, right?
Wrong. I mean I can't say with certainty until it happens, but every new weapon and invention is the end of infantry and gunfights and everything else forever, for sure THIS time! Just like every new weapon is so devastating it will end all wars forever, although after two world wars it seems like pundits have learned better than to say that now.
Troops will be necessary, any time goals below "extermination" are desired; a population brought into line, a strategic asset taken, etc.
So that leaves us with a dilemma; Even with reactionless drives and FTL transit to avoid century long trips, shipping enough to fight a war across (inter)stellar distances is a pain. Infantry, whether a Galactic Patrol's marine compliment or a purpose built troop transport, will be needed to get things done.
Option one: Big Ships
You can fit a fair few troops in a ship. The point at which you can wage spacewar, you can manage ships of at least capital sizes, from frigates to cruisers. They probably can't land on the surface themselves, but they'll have landers and lighters and perhaps drop pods. Technology will allow the ship to have vast food stores for the voyage and/or food production aboard, with less crew needed for the ship and a larger troop compliment available.
Option two: Stasis
Hypersleep. Suspended Animation. It goes by many names, but the idea of cramming troops into cold storage for the duration of interstellar voyage is an appealing one. Slow them down or stop them and they need little to no food or water, just power if their storage system requires it to maintain function (which is likely, but some wonder materials allow such shenanigans to be harnessed naturally). If you aren't likely to need everyone in an unplanned-for hurry, you can take a whole army and pack them up, perhaps defrosting them in shifts depending on the nature of storage and its ease of sleep/wakeup such that they don't disconnect from the world for weeks or months at a time, keeping enough awake to manage tasks and hold the fort until the rest can be roused to function.
Option three: Droids
What if you didn't need human troops? This has long been considered the future of warfare, with just as many detractors. A robot army, AI programmed to be as empathetic or unfeeling as desired, with none of those human failings and urges to distract from the mission. When they're broken, you can just repair them, or disassemble them as parts to keep the others fighting, and even produce more as required.
Throughout media, usually one or more of these winds up in play. Droids usually belong to the bad guys, unthinking, unfeeling, and merciless in their enforcement of the cruel edicts of their conquering masters. If droids are in play, the good guys will have good honest armies, awake and plucky. Stasis is usually the realm of one of two major tropes; the sealed badass in a can, or realistic space transit where there's no benefit to having huge masses of troops awake and draining resources, bored in the infinite vastness of space.
I've said all I really have to say on the first two options, but the third... the third bears some elaboration, because it has such potential for how underutilized it is. It was the planned topic of this discussion, until I deemed it worthwhile to provide some lead in and background. Look for that on Interstellar Warfare Wednesday.
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